Stateside's conversation with Elissa Slotkin, a Democratic congressional candidate and former Pentagon official and CIA officer.

President Trump began his day on Twitter Wednesday defending his meeting and press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

One tweet said: "So many people at the higher ends of intelligence loved my press conference performance in Helsinki..."

This comes less than a day after the president read a statement walking back statements he made in Helsinki, saying he intended to say that he does accept the intelligence community's assessment that Russia meddled in our elections.

Despite receiving unfavorable national attention for some serious problems in last November’s general election, Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey pledges that Tuesday’s primary election should run smoothly.

Winfrey says a combination of new voting equipment and improved poll-worker training should help avoid the problems that plagued Detroit precincts in November.

A new report finds roughly $40 million was spent on Michigan’s 14 Congressional races in 2016. $9.4 million was spent in just one Michigan Congressional race, the battle for the formally vacant seat representing the U.P. and northern Michigan.

“That’s a large sum of money considering the fact that really none of these 14 Congressional races were that close in Michigan in 2016,” says Craig Mauger, the executive director of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network.

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In elections, it’s all about who shows up.

And last year, Democrats didn’t.

The Democrats’ historic loss in Michigan is due pretty much to the fact that too many voters who would typically vote Democratic simply sat out Election 2016. While Republicans, true to form, showed up at the polls.

Michigan’s top 150 Political Action Committees raised a record amount during the 2016 presidential election cycle.

The Michigan Campaign Finance Network crunched the numbers and found Michigan’s largest PAC’s raised more than $48 million in 2015 and 2016. That's an increase of seven million dollars over the previous record set in the 2008 presidential election.

Executive director Craig Mauger says that well outpaced the rate of inflation.

Michigan’s elections chief says it appears there were 31 instances of people casting two ballots in the 2016 election, but it doesn’t seem to have changed any results. That was the finding of audits of the election results, as well as a separate inquiry into ballot irregularities in Detroit.

It’s said necessity is indeed the mother of invention. Innovation is often born out of crisis or conflict – a war, a pandemic or a financial crash. Sometimes the conflict can be constructive, like the invention of a new miracle drug. And sometimes the conflict can be destructive, like, for instance, a contentious election.

Hello, my fellow Michiganeers, it’s your friendly neighbor-radio hood Mike Blank. Just in case you’ve been trapped in an abandoned copper mine in the Upper Peninsula since November and you haven’t heard, we’re about to get a new president.

I try not to focus on political issues during our brief time together. However, the one thing that stood out about this election to me was the staggering number of people who did not vote. Roughly 47% of registered voters stayed away from their local school gymnasium, church, or community center on Election Day. And it wasn’t because of the funky smell.

Our conversation with Dr. Michael Busuito, a plastic surgeon just elected to the Wayne State Board of Governors.

On Jan. 20, Donald J. Trump will be sworn in as our 45th President of the United States. The election was one of the most contentious in recent memory and has exposed or inflamed serious divisions in American society. All this week on Stateside, we’ll speak with Michiganders who were drawn to the President-elect’s message about their hopes for the new administration.

The inauguration of Donald Trump as our 45th President is Friday. Stateside has been speaking with people in Michigan who supported the President-elect.

Dr. Michael Busuito is a plastic surgeon who was just elected to the Wayne State Board of Governors.

Our conversation with Chad Livengood, a political reporter in the Detroit News' Lansing bureau

Electors gathered today at their state capitols to formalize Donald Trump's election to the presidency. As expected, Michigan's 16 electors cast their votes for Donald Trump.

In the days leading up to today's vote, however, electors endured intense pressure from people around the country to vote against the President-Elect.

“They’ve been getting letters, lots of them, in the mail and emails,” said Detroit News Lansing reporterChad Livengood. “One elector I talked to – Wyckham Seelig from the Ann Arbor area – he got over 62,000 emails over the last five weeks from people across the country trying to get him to change his vote and buck Donald Trump.”

A lot of attention is being paid today to the usually almost-anonymous job of being a presidential elector.

This afternoon at the state Capitol, in the state Senate chamber, Michigan’s 16 votes for president will be cast by presidential electors - one vote for every congressional district in the state, plus two at-large electors.

It’s a little-noted honor to be an elector. Typically, it’s held for party stalwarts looking to be a footnote to history.

DETROIT - Electors in Michigan are in line to obey state law and vote for Republican President-elect Donald Trump.

The state requires the 16 members of the Electoral College convening Monday at the statehouse to vote according to the results of the Michigan's presidential election, which Trump won by .2 percentage points. Still, electors surveyed by The Associated Press say they support him regardless.

Elector Joseph Guzman, a Michigan State University assistant professor, says Trump is "my candidate," and he would vote for him even "if there were no rules."

When Donald Trump announced West Michigan billionaire Betsy DeVos as his pick for Secretary of Education, reaction was mixed. Many wondered aloud how someone who has advocated for major changes in education, but who has never taught, would be qualified for the post.

Recent secretaries have included a former Governor, the CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, a former college dean and school superintendent and others with doctorates in education. Virtually every piece written about the nomination of Betsy DeVos describes her along the lines of as a "Michigan philanthropist" or a "leading Republican donor".

Others think at least a part of the answer as to why she was nominated for this post lies in the deep pockets of the DeVos family.